By LEVI PULKKINEN, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Prosecutors have filed assault charges against three men accused of fighting an off-duty Seattle police officer outside a Ballard bar.

In charging documents, King County prosecutors claim Jake K. Baijot-Clary, 21, Jason R. Lamb, 27, and Simon Lee Thayer, also 27, accosted the police officer as he tried to follow a woman who had tried to steal his jacket from BalMar, a Ballard Avenue bar.

Speaking Wednesday, an attorney for one of the men disputed the police version of events, saying his client intervened when he saw the off-duty officer "roughing up" a young woman shortly after 1 a.m.

"He saw a grown man roughing up a woman, and he stepped in to intervene," said Tim Leary, attorney for Baijot-Clary. "Had he known it was an officer, he wouldn't have responded the way he did."

Describing the Dec. 12 incident, a Seattle police detective said the off-duty officer was with a friend at the bar when they noticed their jackets had gone missing from their chairs. The men saw woman outside the bar holding both jackets and went to confront her.

After trying to explain to the woman that she was holding their jackets, he identified himself as a police officer and presented his badge, the detective told the court. The woman was unimpressed.

"That doesn't mean (expletive)," the woman said, according to police reports. "Anybody can get one of those."

Nonetheless, the woman returned the jackets as the off-duty officer called 911, the detective wrote.

The officer and his friend then followed the woman as she began walking away, according to charging documents. By then, according to the detective's report, a crowd had begun to gather.

As the two men walked, the detective told the court, they realized they were being followed by three men who were yelling at them not to follow the woman. Per the detective's account, the officer showed his badge to the men and told them not to interfere.

After turning to follow the woman, the officer and his friend were set upon by the other men, according to charging documents.

Lamb grabbed the officer's friend and punched him in the face before the other man took him to the ground, the detective told the court. The detective contended that Thayer and Baijot-Clary pulled the officer to the ground, kicking and punching him while he was restrained.

The first uniformed officer to respond to the separated Lamb and the officer's friend, then pulled Thayer off the officer, the detective continued. Both officers then restrained Baijot-Clary.

Interviewed by police, Thayer and Lamb said they thought the badge the officer had presented was a fake, the detective told the court.

The officer's face was bruised and swollen following the altercation. The detective noted that he may have suffered a concussion.

Leary, the attorney for Bijou-Clary, said his client intervened after seeing the off-duty officer treating the woman -- who was a stranger to the three defendants -- roughly.

Bijou-Clary did not know the man was an off-duty police officer, Leary said. All he saw was a large man in an altercation with a young woman.

"What they saw was a well-dressed man who turned out to be this off-duty officer roughing up this girl," Leary said.

"In some respects he responded like anyone's parents would hope their child would respond," the defense attorney continued. "Had this officer made it much more clear that he was an officer, or had they known that he was an officer, the situation would have been different."

Leary noted, correctly, that court documents don't indicate whether the off-duty officer had been drinking at the time of the incident. He described the investigation as ongoing.

Baijot-Clary and Thayer, of Bellingham, and Lamb, of Bainbridge Island, have each been charged with third-degree assault. Each was jailed the night of the incident but has since been released.